Surprisingly, Aspas has a decent chance created per 90 average of 1.86 and chance created value of 12.4. Unfortunately that's about it, his piss poor passing, abysmal turnover rate, and goals-on-pitch difference of 0.94 aren't worth £770,000.
It started out so promising though. He scored 4 goals in the preseason, including one in his first match, a curling beaut of a strike from outside of the box against Preston. In our opening fixture versus Stoke at Anfield, he assisted on what would be the game-winning goal. Then he did little else save his only official goal as a Liverpool player, when Oldham came to Anfield for their FA Cup tie in January.
You have to wonder what Rodgers has in store for Aspas. I would hope he's planning to sell him, apparently Sevilla will take him on the cheap. At this point getting anything back for him would be a plus, £7.7m is awfully expensive for a mascot.
And I'm not talking about our performance. I'm referring to the onslaught of garbage the press is force feeding the general public, most who didn't even see the match and won't look at the facts. The truth is this was a no contest. The truth is Havant scored on a set-piece, which any club can do against any other club no matter the differential in talent. The truth is the other goal was a deflection off Skrtel, ruled an own goal. The truth is Liverpool won quite easily, by three goals, but I guess the press has to conjure up bullshit to rectify and prove their control over the ignorance that is so rampant in the football world. At least the casual fan will concur. A farce nonetheless and it should have been worse if it weren't for a futile performance from the king of such, yes, I'm referring to one Peter Crouch.
The positives were abundant. Lucas opened up his scoring account for us with this piece of brilliance:
The kid is going to be a legend.
A lot of the attack went through Babel and Pennant, even though Benayoun will get most of the superficial credit since he did get a hat trick. It appears that Babel is finally learning that he doesn't have to go it alone, as the final goal by Crouch, which the young Dutchman set-up by finding Gerrard in the box on the left. Stevie-G then set it across to an offside Crouch who easily tapped it in. Yes, he was offside, but at that point it mattered little, the match was over.
Pennant looked like his old trickster self, bobbing and weaving his way through the Havant defense like a ghost through a graveyard. I was really glad to see him back to such form. He'll never get the credit he justly deserves since his past will allow the shallow their self-righteous judgments, but in reality, JP's style of play is eclectic and produces results. I hope this performance convinces Rafa that Pennant is deserving of more pitch time.
Havant deserve plenty of credit for playing hard and not giving in. They almost had a third, on a set play, if it weren't for a brilliant stop by Itandje. Their play was inspiring and the flow of their attack was quite impressive, if not lackluster. Defensively though they were as porous as a sponge and their wall-building schemes only managed to leave them stagnant. I could have also done without their overt physicality which was more prone to nearly injuring our players than accomplishing anything else.
As for negatives, well, I could go off on a tangent on how bad Crouch was, but why bother? Once again he showed he's not much better than an amateur. I fear what would have happened if Torres had started, which is another point, we didn't put out our best side and won by three goals. Enough said.
Fernando Torres has warned that a Rafa exit could result in a mass exodus of players including himself. I believe this 'crisis' has been pretty much put to rest, unless of course the upcoming meeting between Rafa and the owners doesn't go accordingly. You can't really blame Rafa for leaving if he isn't going to get the funds needed to continue to strengthen our side. The thing I find interesting is Rafa saying he was asking about two 'free' transfers. One is widely considered the signing of Masche on a permanent but the other is still a mystery. I wonder if it's someone like Francesco Coco or Jonathan Zebina?
Pepe Reina made sure to thank his defenders for making his job easy. Ya think, Pepe? He should probably pay homage to lady luck as well after Anelka missed a wide open net yesterday due to a poor decision by the Spanish keep. Clean sheets are great when earned, but yesterday Reina had no right walking away with a goose egg under our opponents name on the scoreboard. I realize he probably gets a little bored and rusty with minimal involvement in the match, but it's still no excuse to make glaring mistakes.
Milan Baros may be returning to the Premiership as the Czech striker has lost hope in retaining a first team spot with Lyon. To increase his chances at making the Czech Republic Euro squad, the 26-year-old is looking to move to a club where he'll have a better chance of playing regularly. Wigan, Middlesbrough and Birmingham apparently are all interested in obtaining 'ole condom head'.
Finally, for the FA Cup, we drew the winner of Luton Town and Nottingham Forest. Personally I prefer Forest. Competition-wise, there's little difference between the two League One sides. Forest may be the slightly better club at the moment, but it's far from apples and oranges. The chance to annihilate old foes is always a relishing prospect. Cheers.
